


the key that our souls were singing

by cosmogyrals



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: a collection of ficlets for samtember 2020, featuring samsteve
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Samtember





	1. new beginnings

"I know I've asked you this before." Steve toyed with his fork for a moment, drawing abstract patterns in the syrup on his plate before he looked up at Sam. "And I know you have your reasons for saying no - and I don't blame you."

"But," Sam started for him. He already knew what the question was - the more time he spent around Steve, the more he found himself able to predict what the other man was going to say, going to do. They made a damn good team, that much was for sure. 

"But we need more folks to make the Avengers stronger. And I need someone who I know is good in a fight, someone I trust to have my back." He laughed softly. "Not that I don't trust the others - you know I like them. And I trust Nat with my life, but that's not enough. Wanda and Vision don't know how to fight at all, and Rhodey's spent his career in a plane."

Sam grinned at that. Steve might not have been Air Force - hell, the Air Force itself hadn't even been founded till he was under the ice - but he knew exactly how everyone who wasn't a pilot felt about pilots. And if it gave him an excuse to spend more time ribbing Rhodes, well, he couldn't turn that down.

"I want you to have my six, Sam," he finished. "Stark's working on a new set of wings already, and we're turning an old Stark Industries warehouse upstate into a training facility for the new Avengers." Steve's gaze was dark and serious. "We'll still be chasing after leads looking for Bucky, but - but we gotta do this, too. If you're in."

Sam hesitated for a moment, just to watch Steve dangling. "Yeah, I'm in," he said finally. He had to admit, strapping the wings back on had felt damn good. He'd missed the feeling of the wind rushing past him, the peace he could only find in the sky. He'd even missed the adrenaline rush of a good fight (though not, it had to be said, trying to outrun a collapsing building). "You know I got your back, Steve."

Steve smiled at him, and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. "Thanks, Sam." He reached out and took Sam's hand in his, his clasp warm and strong.

"You better not be enlisting me just to cook you breakfast every morning," Sam warned him, his chuckle low and rich. "Stark can hire someone else for that."

"Wilson, I'm gonna run your ass into the ground before breakfast," Steve retorted easily. His thumb dragged over Sam's knuckle. "You'll be too worn out to even think about cooking."

"That so?" Sam arched an eyebrow. "We'll have to see about that."

"Yeah, I guess we will."


	2. seaside

"Your colors are running together."

Steve sighed; Sam could feel his shoulders heave, the way the sigh rippled through his body. "They're supposed to run together," he explained patiently. "It's a technique for color blending with watercolors." He dipped the tip of his brush in the water, then dabbed the pigment again. Sam watched the paint bloom on the paper, sending out tendrils into the other wet paint, the colors mixing and swirling together. "It's good for creating skies and seascapes."

When he'd suggested a quiet morning, Sam had thought they'd sit out on the deck of their rented house and maybe read the paper and drink coffee - yeah, like a boring married old couple, but that was what they were pretending to be for the sake of this mission. He hadn't expected Steve to decide to drag him out to the beach at the asscrack of dawn so he could paint the sunrise. It wasn't even a nice summer beach, the kind he'd enjoyed when he'd visited cousins in South Carolina. No, they were in Massachusetts - the goddamn rich part that was filled with pretentious white people - in _autumn_. Sam firmly believed that you shouldn't have to wear a sweater to the beach, just as much as he believed that a beach should be more sand than rocks.

"I hate watercolor," Steve muttered under his breath. Sam wasn't even sure he was supposed to hear that.

"Yeah?" he asked anyway, keeping his voice pitched low. Steve was pretending to be an artist - the kind of artist who lived on a trust fund and never actually sold any paintings. He was wearing glasses, because at some point, Steve had decided glasses were part of a solid disguise, like no one could tell that the man with a chiseled jawline and a tight-fitting cable knit sweater was Captain America if he just stuck some frames on his face.

"You have to wait for it to dry," Steve explained.

Someone else might have required further explanation, but Sam knew _exactly_ what Steve meant. For someone who'd spent so much of his life stuck in bed sick with one illness or another, Steve was goddamn awful at waiting. Maybe it was because he'd been sick, or because he'd been frozen for decades, but Steve didn't do patience. Sam, much like his pseudonym, could sit in one spot and watch for hours, which made him great at stakeouts. (He'd kicked Steve out of the car the first time they'd tried surveillance together.) But Steve Rogers was motion, was _action_. He worked in pen and pencil - quick, decisive strokes, no time waiting for it to dry. (Sometimes he sketched in charcoal - he'd done a series of Sam, or tried to, and Sam still remembered the dark smudges pressed into his skin.)

"This," Sam replied, "is why I went for the easy cover. All I gotta do is read a book, maybe do a sudoku." He waved the Starkpad he held in one hand. "Bam. No art required. You could've been my hot lawyer husband. Maybe even a doctor."

"You sure aren't reading your book," Steve retorted. "You're playing amateur art critic." He leaned his head back against Sam and closed his eyes for a moment; Sam took the opportunity to brush a kiss against his forehead, just below the hairline.

Sam hummed softly, enjoying the warmth of Steve's body against his. "It's more fun," he pointed out. "Gotta get my kicks in where I can. Is your paint dry yet?"

Steve cracked an eyelid open and glanced at the sketchpad. "No." His frustration made his voice rumble deep in his chest. "I'm definitely never gonna sell a painting."

"It's okay, honey," Sam cooed in a disgustingly sweet tone. He patted Steve's upper arm, feeling the firm muscle under the wool. "I'll still appreciate the work of art that is your ass, even if it's never displayed in a museum."

Twisting his head, Steve made a face at Sam. "Asshole. Come on, let's go get some coffee."


	3. surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. sorry for the extremely large gap! life happened (tm) and now I am trying to slowly climb back on the writing wagon (not that i am ever on the writing wagon but sometimes i pretend)  
> 2\. thank you for the kind comments! i wish i had a button to hit to like them because replying makes me anxious but please know i treasure each and every comment even if i don't respond  
> 3\. this is sadie's fault, she knows exactly what she did

Sam hated the PR circuit for a lot of reasons. Some of them were absolutely legitimate, and some of them boiled down to being put on the spot under bright lights while he tried not to sweat the makeup off his face. Two years and some change after the Battle of New York and the founding of the Avengers - and thanks to way too many USO shows, he claimed - Steve faced down interviewers without so much as batting an eyelash. The only Avenger better at this kind of thing was Tony, and that was because he'd been doing it since he was born.

("Why can't you do this?" he'd asked Tony when they'd first come up with The Plan. "You're way better at PR stunts. If you haven't faked at least one relationship before, I'll eat my flight harness."

He'd patted Sam on the cheek. "Because, parakeet, I'm a reformed man these days. Gotta stay on the straight and narrow." He winked at the word 'straight'. "You aren't wrong, though.")

He shifted awkwardly on the leather couch, his thigh brushing up against Steve's; Steve caught the squirming and turned to him to smile reassuringly. "Don't worry," he murmured, "just another interview. All you gotta do is stick to the script, and we'll be back home making fun of the Fox News anchors while they shit bricks before you know it." Their faux relationship had taken the country by storm, and overnight, they'd become the latest celebrity couple sensation. It was kind of like being a Kardashian, but with less plastic surgery. But Fox News, predictably, had taken offense to Captain America dating a man - and a black man, at that - and devoted large chunks of time to analyzing their every public interview. It was kind of creepy, and he was pretty sure Nat had a betting pool on how long it would take one of the anchors to have a heart attack on air.

"You've been dating for months, right?" the anchor - he thought her name was Kelly - asked when the cameras started to roll. "Keeping it under wraps first - although we do have some pictures of the two of you jogging together - before you came out publicly. So I have to say, the question on everyone's mind is: when are we going to get an Avengers wedding?"

Sam's heart stopped beating for a moment, and he wondered if he could sink in between the couch cushions live on air. Surely the heat from his cheeks would burn right through the makeup that was caked on. "Uh-" he started to stammer. This was absolutely not in the script.

"Well-" Steve shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it, but-" He shifted off the couch and went down onto one knee in front of Sam, gripping one of his hands in both of his.

 _This can't be happening_ , Sam thought desperately. _This is all a bad dream, I'm going to look down and discover that I'm naked on live TV and then I'm going to wake up in bed. Alone._

"Sam, honey, until I met you, I felt like my life here in the twenty-first century was missing something." Had he (and Stark) actually scripted this, or was it another one of Steve's legendary off the cuff speeches? Sam wasn't sure he wanted to know. "You're my anchor, my right-hand man, my wingman. There's no one else I'd rather be with for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?"

Sam blinked. He didn't wake up.

_Oh, fuck._

"We'll be right back with the _exciting_ conclusion after these messages!" Kelly chirped, and they blessedly cut to commercial. "Or else we'll move on to the next segment and pretend nothing ever happened," she added under her breath once they were off the air.

"Sam. You need to breathe." Steve squeezed his hand.

"I." In an instant, the numbness wore off, and Sam's emotions flooded in. He stood up, dragging Steve onto his feet, and hauled him backstage and into their dressing room. "What the _fuck_?" he hissed between clenched teeth. 

Steve looked surprised. "I was just rolling with it. We don't have to do anything, you know that."

"We don't have to do anything?" Sam snorted. "If I say yes, they'll expect the American version of a fucking royal wedding, Steve! We can't just pretend we fucked off to Vegas and got married by an Elvis impersonator! This is _real_! You proposed to me on live national television! You can't- you can't just do that! It's not the same as all the staged dates and the pride parade and the PSAs! You can't let go of my hand when the people with cameras are gone and expect things to be normal!" Sam was normally the calm and collected one out of the pair, but when he lost his temper, there was no putting a lid on him. Not when he'd kept his feelings pent up for too damn long for the sake of his best friend.

Closing his eyes, Steve scrubbed his face with his hand. "No, you're right." He deflated. His shoulders slumped, and he slipped into that posture that reminded Sam of a much smaller man, the dejection that took him right back to who he'd been before the serum. "I wasn't thinking and I got carried away with it. I'm sorry, Sam. I just- I _wanted_ it to be normal."

Sam took a step back. "You what?" Sure, he had feelings for Steve that went beyond friendship, but he was pretty sure it was impossible to be around Steve Rogers for any length of time without developing a crush on him. He was just that kind of guy - pure and good and caring, well-meaning even when he was a total dumbass, a complete and utter troll whose grin eased the sting of all his jokes and pranks. Sam loved him, and pretending to date him for the sake of a PR stunt was the worst idea he'd ever gone along with.

"I want you, Sammy." Steve opened his eyes, caught Sam's gaze and held it. His hands found Sam's again. "I want everything to be real. I've wanted it since the first time we kissed outside that pizza place - maybe before. What I said earlier, I wasn't lying. I'd marry you here and now if I could."

Sam laughed, and the sound was somewhere in between joy and disbelief. "I'm not gonna marry a guy I haven't even been on one _real_ date with," he retorted.

"Hey!" An assistant banged on the door. "We need you back on set now!"

Sam had been two inches away from kissing Steve - and, to be fair, if he'd made it, they probably would have missed the rest of the show, he thought. But back on the couch, he found himself composed and smiling at the cameras. This time, the smile wasn't even fake.

"Well?" Kelly asked, leaning forward in her seat.

"To paraphrase Beyonce," Sam replied brightly, "if you want it, you gotta put a ring on it."


	4. fairytale au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know the prompt is fireman au but i'm a rebel and i do what i want ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Two weeks ago, Sam wouldn't have expected to find himself being led through Avengers Tower by Tony Stark himself and given the VIP tour of the place. But seemingly out of the blue, Nick Fury - who he'd never even heard of before - had called him, which had led to a meeting, and now Sam was actual Captain goddamn America, shield slung over his back and everything. Stark had already assured him he was working on a new state of the art jetpack for him, he'd met Thor ( _Thor!_ ), and now he was face to face with the Avengers' most reclusive member.

He didn't recognize him at first - he'd only seen him in the body armor Stark had made for him. But apparently here at home, he just wore sweatpants. And even though he'd just met an actual god, being toe to toe with an eight-foot-tall bipedal lion was something else entirely. His intense golden gaze pinned Sam to the spot, and for a moment, he knew what a gazelle felt like right before being devoured. (But Stark had been absolutely firm in all the Avengers' PR - he was sentient, and no, he didn't eat humans, just a lot of steak.)

"I told you about Sam earlier," Tony offered from behind him, in response to an unvoiced challenge. "He's joining the team. Sam, this is Leo."

Sam knew him as Pride, but it made sense that his superhero identity would be different from his normal one. "Little on the nose there, huh?" He tried a smile, but was met with an implacable feline stare.

"I tried Simba, but he doesn't like The Lion King. So we all just roll with Leo." Tony shrugged. "This is the gym, as you can see - or one of them, we have an aquatic center a couple floors down, and Fury mentioned you'd want a gymnastics setup for training, so we'll get that in for you-"

Leo kept staring at him - or, more precisely, at a point somewhere over Sam's shoulder - and Sam tried hard to be less intimidated by the wall of sculpted muscle and tawny fur in front of him, to just pay attention to Tony's chatter. He tore his gaze away, but not before he caught a glimpse of something like yearning in his eyes.

\--

"What is he?" Sam asked Banner as they were flying back from a mission. It had been a fairly quick op, just the two of them, and Sam had already shrugged off his jetpack and the shield and settled in for the ride back.

"Who, Leo?" Bruce pulled a new shirt on from the equipment lockers in the back. Everyone else had their preferred weapons; Bruce just had a bunch of extra clothes in his. 

"Stark says he's a biological impossibility."

Bruce rolled his eyes as he buttoned up the shirt. " _I'm_ a biological impossibility. Tony's not wrong, but he's surprisingly bound by the laws of science for a guy who synthesized a new element in his basement."

Sometimes, talking to the geniuses on the team meant waiting for them to get around to the point. "Uh-huh," Sam encouraged him.

"He's a science experiment, as best as we can figure out," Bruce continued. "When Tony says he's impossible, he means that from all the tests we've run on him, everything indicates that he was born that way - but he's decades old, older than any of us, and he _says_ he was experimented on by the Soviets before he escaped."

"He doesn't talk much." Not that Sam had gotten him alone much - or at all - but that was part of it, keeping to himself and even staying out of the common areas shared by the Avengers. He made Bruce look like a chatterbox. "What about the Soviets?"

Bruce shrugged. "That's pretty much it. All I know is that he saved Tony's life when he was in the desert in Afghanistan, and Tony brought him back here eventually. Just another misfit toy for his collection." His lips twisted wryly. "If you're trying to ask if he's safe to be around, the answer is that you're probably safer with him than you are with me."

\--

Sam couldn't get the hang of throwing the shield. Half the time, it clattered uselessly to the ground a few feet away from him - and he'd seen the old footage of Captain America throwing it, he knew it had to be possible. Sure, he wasn't a super-soldier, but the thing was made of vibranium, and that had to compensate for something. He'd thought he was alone in the gym until he lodged the shield in a punching bag and found Leo plucking it out. He stared down at the shield in his immense paw-hands for a few long moments before striding over to Sam and gently placing it in his hands.

"You need to let the movement flow through your body," he said abruptly. "Turn your shoulders and hips before you let it go, let them guide the shield." He stepped behind him, close enough that Sam could feel the heat of his body, the fur brushing against the nape of his neck. He put his arms around Sam and guided him through a throwing motion. "Like that." He repeated the movement slowly, so Sam could get used to it, but all Sam could think about was the muscle under the fur, and-

God, was he secretly a furry or something? Yeah, he had a build straight off a romance novel cover, but he was also very much covered in fur and had fangs as long as Sam's hand.

Sam sucked in a breath and stepped away to throw the shield again. This time, it arced perfectly and ricocheted off the practice dummy he'd set up as a target.

"See?" Leo seemed pleased - it was as much emotion as he ever showed, anyway. "Just keep working at it and you'll be fine."

(to be continued?)


End file.
